


She Existed For Me

by virdant



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Angst, Death References, Gen, crazy people, mentions of stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:45:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virdant/pseuds/virdant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Jennifer Wilson sometimes thinks, as she works her wedding ring off her finger, that Rachel is the most beautiful thing to ever happen to her.</i> Jennifer Wilson on Rachel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	She Existed For Me

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Pann](http://pannytheangel.deviantart.com) for looking it over and listening to me while I rambled at great depth _why_ Jennifer Wilson just didn't make sense.

Rachel means beautiful. Beautiful in form. Beautiful in countenance. Jennifer Wilson sometimes thinks, as she works her wedding ring off her finger, that Rachel is the most beautiful thing to ever happen to her.

Jennifer likes to remember that she had nine months with Rachel. Nine long, glorious months, with Rachel curled up in the safest place in the world. It was the happiest time of her life, watching Rachel grow.

“Rachel,” her husband likes to say, “is dead. She never _existed_.”

But Jennifer knows better. She remembers holding Rachel close to her as they painted the nursery a pale yellow. (Now, the paint has faded to dingy cream and instead of a crib there’s a desk, covered with papers.) She remembers Rachel—warm, curled next to her as she sleeps. She remembers little dresses that were never worn, that are packed in boxes and stored away, just waiting for her to open them up and remember: _Rachel_.

Her husband doesn’t like that. It’s only one of the many things they argue about.

*

People like to say that time lessens the pain. She wants to tell those people to lose a child before they judge.

She tells her husband that forgetting Rachel is _never_ an option.

“Move on!” he shouts. “You’re hanging onto Rachel like she was alive!”

“She was alive!” she screams back, clutching her abdomen like that will protect Rachel from the noise. But her child is gone now, buried deep under dirt in a wooden coffin. She carried Rachel for nine months, nine glorious months, and a wooden box will hold Rachel for the rest of eternity. That isn’t fair. “She _was_ alive.”

He doesn’t understand.

Rachel always slept quietly. She never kicked or grumbled like her colleges suggested their children did. Rachel had little hands and little feet that never did more than curl helplessly. “She was alive,” Jennifer repeats, helplessly, and watches her husband’s face crumple.

“She’s dead now, Jen,” he says. “You’ve got to move on.”

“No,” Jennifer says, one arm pressed heavily against her body. There are still scars from when the doctors cut her open to pull Rachel out. When they forced tiny Rachel to face the real world, when Jennifer was helpless and unable to watch as they ripped her away.

“Jennifer, you’re being irrational.”

“Don’t tell me I’m not allowed to grieve!” she screams back. “You never knew her! _I_ knew her! She was alive!”

“Alright, alright,” he says. “Just. Calm down, alright?”

Jennifer clutches herself and sobs. There’s a vast emptiness where Rachel should be.

*

After a while, she does move on.

She dresses up in bright cheerful colors (because a mother has to be a good example to her child), and goes to work (a good mother has to provide the best future for her child), and continues living.

The first time she sleeps with another man is a week after Rachel’s birthday. Rachel would have been four. She buys a set of balloons in pink on her way back from work, and blows them up. She’s sitting in the middle of them in what’s now become the study singing happy birthday when her husband returns from work.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

“It’s Rachel’s birthday,” she replies.

It’s a remix of their many fights. Rachel is dead. She needs to move on. Rachel never actually existed.

Jennifer walks out. For a week she doesn’t talk to her husband. For a week, she eats dinner alone in a pub, wearing the bright colors that she thinks Rachel would have loved.

When a man propositions her, she doesn’t hesitate. Rachel needs a better father than her husband, and maybe this man will suit.

She never forgives her husband for denying Rachel’s existence.

*

She remembers Rachel every time she types her password. R-A-C-H-E-L.

Seven letters.

“Why are you doing this, Jennifer?” her husband asks. “Why can’t you just move on?”

Nobody will ever take Rachel away from her.

“We can have other children,” he tries. “We can try again! Or we can adopt, if you scared of it happening again. Just, Jen. Please. You aren’t yourself.”

“I don’t want another child,” she retorts, “I have Rachel.” Every time she types her daughter’s name, she thinks—with a thrill of pride—that she will always have Rachel.

“You’re crazy,” he whispers. “You’re absolutely crazy.”

*

Sleeping around is okay, she thinks.

It’s just to find Rachel a better father.

One who will always remember her.

*

“Jennifer,” her husband says. “Jennifer, doesn’t it _hurt_?”

“Of course,” she says, packing for a trip to London. “Of course it hurts, you stupid fool. That’s the point.”

He stares back. “But if it hurts, then _why_?”

Jennifer pulls on her coat—bright pink, something that Rachel could see her wearing and laugh about—and says, curtly, “To remember Rachel.”

“Why?” he asks. “Why can’t you move on?”

“And that,” she replies, “is why you aren’t a mother.”

*

When the cabbie offers her a chance to be with Rachel again, she doesn’t even have to think.

She’s a _good_ mother.

Good mothers belong with their children.

*

 _Rachel_ , she scratches as she dies. _Rachel._

It hurts. Dying hurts. She wants to know: _is this what you felt, Rachel?_ Those nine long months, as beautiful as they were for her, was her daughter in this much pain?

 _You can tell me. I’m coming for you._

She’s dying. She’s going back to Rachel. And with her gone, there will be nobody left to remember Rachel. Nobody except for the police who will find her body. The police who will see Rachel’s name carved on the ground with her fingernails. The police who will find her murderer.

 _You’re going to be special, Rachel. Your father will never forget you now._

It hurts, but Jennifer knows it’s fine. This is what Rachel felt for nine months. If Rachel could bear it, than so can she.

 _It’s only temporary. It’s only temporary._

 _We’ll have the rest of eternity, Rachel._

**Author's Note:**

> Notes on Jennifer Wilson's characterization can be found [here](http://virdant.livejournal.com/57164.html). Reading said notes may spoil you for the story. Please note that I do not condone the above behavior as acceptable.


End file.
